by Pamela Horn
46. Diary of Lady Jean Hamilton, Microfilm 20/1/5, entry for 21 May 1927.
47. Will of Lady Astor. Probate was granted on 19 August 1964. Mrs Hawkins, the long-serving London housekeeper received £300 per annum as her annuity.
48. Daily Mail, 30 July 1924.
49. John Scott, The Upper Classes. Property and Privilege in Britain (London and Basingstoke, 1982), p. 117.
50. Ross McKibbin, Classes and Cultures. England 1918–1951 (Oxford, 2000 edn), pp. 16 and 21.
51. McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, p. 21.
52. McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, p. 21.
53. Quoted in McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, p. 34
54. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 78.
55. Michael Luke, David Tennant and the Gargoyle Years (London, 1991), pp. 19–21 and 30.
56. Vogue, 5 October 1927.
57. Vogue, 5 October 1927 and Balfour, Society Racket, p. 78.
58. Allyson Hayward, Norah Lindsay. The Life and Art of a Garden Designer (London, 2007), p. 69. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 78.
59. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 79.
60. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 80. See advertisement for Lord Victor Paget’s business in Vogue, 2 November 1927.
61. Corsham Court Guide (n.d. c. 2009, at the house), p. 30.
62. Daphne Fielding, Mercury Presides (London, 1954), p. 121.
63. See entry for Stephen Tennant in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).
64. Charles F. G. Masterman, England After War. A Study (London, n.d. c. 1923), p. 38.
65. Barbara Cartland, We Danced All Night (London, 1994 edn), p. 55.
66. Balfour, Society Racket, pp. 148–149.
67. Vogue, early April 1927. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 148.
68. Janet Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten. A Life of Her Own (London, 1992 edn), pp. 192–193.
69. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 148.
70. Soames, Clementine Churchill, pp. 197–198.
71. Entry in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), p. 393. Cartland, We Danced All Night, p. 49.
72. Selina Hastings, Nancy Mitford (London, 2002 edn), pp. 69–71. Jonathan Guinness with Catherine Guinness, The House of Mitford (London, 2004 edn), pp. 297 and 299, Harold Acton, Nancy Mitford (London, 2010 edn), p. 41.
73. Hastings, Nancy Mitford, pp. 69–71. Acton, Nancy Mitford, p. 41.
74. Guinness with Guinness, The House of Mitford, p. 299.
75. Beverley Nichols, All I Could Never Be. Some Recollections (London, 1949), pp. 29–30.
76. Vogue, 28 December 1927.
77. Vogue, early February and early April 1927.
78. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 149.
79. Vogue, 19 October 1927, showing Nancy Beaton modelling a Lanvin gown, and Cartland, We Danced All Night, p. 49.
80. Balfour, Society Racket. Lillie Langtry, the Victorian and Edwardian actress and favourite of the Prince of Wales, had benefited by endorsing Pears soap for more than thirty years.
81. Ibid.
82. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 80 and Vogue, early January 1927.
83. Soames, Clementine Churchill, p. 244.
84. Brenda Dean Paul, My First Life (London, n.d. c. 1935), pp. 13, 54 and 57. Entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004) for Brenda Dean Paul.
85. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for Brenda Dean Paul. D. J. Taylor, Bright Young People. The Lost Generation of London’s Jazz Age (New York, 2009 edn), p. 224.
86. Taylor, Bright Young People, p. 318.
87. Raymond A. Jones, Arthur Ponsonby. The Politics of Life (London, 1989), pp. 132, 159 and 183. Taylor, Bright Young People, pp. 100–101.
88. Richard B. Fisher, Syrie Maugham (London, 1978), p. 12. Cecil Beaton, The Glass of Fashion (London, 1954), pp. 204–5.
89. Beaton, The Glass of Fashion, p. 208.
90. Vogue, early July 1927.
91. Fisher, Syrie Maugham, p. 18. Entry for Syrie Maugham in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).
92. Brian Masters, Great Hostesses (London, 1982), pp. 174–175. Kirsty McLeod, A Passion for Friendship. Sibyl Colefax and her Circle (London, 1991), pp. 140–141 and 158. Entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). Nigel Nicolson ed., A Reflection of the Other Person. The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Vol. IV, 1929–1931 (London, 1978), p. 254.
93. The entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography suggests that the 1929 Wall Street stock market crash meant a loss of investments estimated at £50,000.
94. Lady Colefax to Bernard Berenson, n.d. in Colefax MSS., MS.Eng.c.3176, f.49 in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
95. Lady Colefax to Bernard Berenson, 17 November 1930 in Colefax MSS., MS.Eng.c.3176, f.76.
96. Nicolson ed., A Reflection of the Other Person, p. 243. Virginia Woolf to her sister, Vanessa Bell, 2 November 1930.
97. Masters, Great Hostesses, p. 175 and entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
98. Hayward, Norah Lindsay, pp. 77 and 79.
99. Norah Lindsay to Lady Astor MSS. 1416/1/2/38 for 1927. Hayward, Norah Lindsay, pp. 126 and 129–130.
100. See list in Hayward, Norah Lindsay, pp. 256–260. In addition there were four cases in which owners were advised by Norah but no fee was paid, sometimes because she had had lengthy stays with them.
101. Hayward, Norah Lindsay, p. 8.
102. Hayward, Norah Lindsay, pp. 236 and 274.
103. C. L. Mowat, Britain Between the Wars. 1918–1940 (London, 1983 edn), pp. 310 and 312.
104. Cartland, We Danced All Night, pp. 274–276.
105. Mowat, Britain Between the Wars, p. 313.
106. The Bystander, 26 May 1926.
107. The Tatler, 12–16 May 1926.
108. Cartland, We Danced All Night, p. 274.
109. Mary S. Lovell, The Mitford Girls. The Biography of an Extraordinary Family (London, 2010 edn), p. 55.
110. Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, pp. 193–195.
111. Cartland, We Danced All Night, pp. 276 and 285.
112. The Bystander, 26 May 1926.
113. Mowat, Britain Between the Wars, p. 334.
114. Mowat, Britain Between the Wars, p. 329.
115. Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 195.
116. The Bystander, 9 June 1926.
117. Diary No. 33 of Earl Winterton at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, entry for 15 July 1926.
118. Cartland, We Danced All Night, pp. 285 and 289.
6 The ‘Bright Young People’ and the End of an Era
1. Carolyn Hall, The Twenties in Vogue (London, 1983), p. 8. For the view that ‘youth monopolized the centre of the stage’ see Patrick Balfour, Society Racket. A Critical Survey of Modern Social Life (London, 1933), p. 274.
2. Humphrey Carpenter, The Brideshead Generation. Evelyn Waugh and his Friends (London and Boston, 1990 edn), p. 146.
3. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 159.
4. Brenda Dean Paul, My First Life. A Biography (London, n.d., c. 1935), p. 96.
5. Quoted in Barbara Cartland, We Danced all Night (London, 1994 edn), p. 183.
6. ‘Introduction’ to Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies (London, 2000 edn), x-xiv and Hugo Vickers, Cecil Beaton (London, 1986 edn), pp. 96–101.
7. Raymond A. Jones, Arthur Ponsonby. The Politics of Life (London, 1989), p. 160.
8. Mary S. Lovell, The Mitford Girls. The Biography of an Extraordinary Family (London, 2010 edn), p. 71.
9. Douglas Goldring, The Nineteen Twenties. A General Survey and Some Personal Memories (London, 1945), p. 225. D. J. Taylor, Bright Young People. The Lost Generation of London’s Jazz Age (New York, 2007), p. 8.
10. Carpenter, The Brideshead Generation, p. 81, quoting Alan Pryce-Jones.
11. Debates arising from a proposed new Criminal Law Amendment Act. Hansard, 5th Series, Vol. 145, 1799–1804, 4 August 1921, and Vol. 146, 1603–1610, 17 August 1921 and Hansard (House of Lords), Vol. 46, 567–578, 1
5 August 1921.
12. Mitchell A. Leaska and John Phillips ed., Violet to Vita. The Letters of Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville-West (London, 1989), pp. 20–31 and 51. Nigel Nicolson, Portrait of a Marriage (London, 1990 edn), pp. 3, 99–126.
13. Quentin Bell, Virginia Woolf. A Biography, Vol. II, Mrs. Woolf 1912–1941 (London, 1972), p. 119. See also Anne Olivier Bell ed., The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol. II, 1920–1924 (London, 1978), p. 235, entry for 19 February 1923 and Anne Olivier Bell ed., The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol. III, 1925–1930 (London, 1980), pp. 197, 199 and 332, entries for 27 September and 27 October 1928 and 11 November 1930.
14. Michael Bloch, James Lees-Milne. The Life (London, 2009), p. 60.
15. Ross McKibbin, Classes and Cultures. England 1918–1951 (Oxford, 2000 edn), pp. 324–325. See also entry for Radclyffe Hall in C. S. Nicholls ed., Dictionary of National Biography: Missing Persons ( Oxford, 1993), p. 544.
16. Diary of Lady Hamilton, Microfilm 20/1/6 1928–1936, entry for 16 October 1928 in Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London, Archives.
17. McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, p. 324.
18. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 164. Cartland, We Danced All Night, pp. 184 and 186.
19. Cartland, We Danced All Night, pp. 189–190.
20. Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, Grace and Favour (London, 1961), pp. 119–120.
21. Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, Grace and Favour, p. 120.
22. Cartland, We Danced All Night, p. 188.
23. Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, Grace and Favour, p. 122.
24. Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, Grace and Favour, pp. 121–122.
25. Cartland, We Danced All Night, pp. 188–189.
26. Carpenter, The Brideshead Generation, p. 166.
27. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 222.
28. Hall, The Twenties in Vogue, pp. 8–10.
29. Dean Paul, My First Life, p. 101.
30. Dean Paul, My First Life, p. 102.
31. The Daily Mail, 13 July 1928.
32. The Daily Mail, 14 July 1928.
33. Quoted in Taylor, Bright Young People, p. 5.
34. Cartland, We Danced All Night, p. 193.
35. Cartland, We Danced All Night, p. 193. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 171.
36. Cartland, We Danced All Night, pp. 193–194.
37. Cartland, We Danced All Night, p. 194.
38. The Bystander, 31 July 1929. Andrew Barrow, Gossip. A History of High Society from 1920 to 1970 (London, 1978), p. 46. Taylor, Bright Young People, p. 143.
39. Marie Jaqueline Lancaster ed., Brian Howard. Portrait of a Failure (London, 1968), p. 267.
40. Lancaster, ed., Brian Howard, p. 283.
41. Taylor, Bright Young People, pp. 161–162. Jones, Arthur Ponsonby, pp. 182–183, 196 and 231. Elizabeth died, an alcoholic, at the end of July 1940, before her fortieth birthday. Taylor, Bright Young People, pp. 271–272.
42. Balfour, Society Racket, pp. 161, 166 and 172.
43. Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, Grace and Favour, p. 122.
44. Lancaster, ed., Brian Howard, p. 266. Allanah had gone to the party with Brian Howard, who was himself drinking heavily at this time.
45. Cecil Beaton, The Glass of Fashion (London, 1954), pp. 152–153.
46. Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, Grace and Favour, p. 124.
47. Cartland, We Danced All Night, p. 190. Dean Paul, My First Life, p. 102. Brenda Dean Paul claimed that the party had cost David Tennant nearly £3,000 and the menu was taken from the ‘original Royal cookery book of Louis XVI’. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 170. Taylor, Bright Young People, p. 195.
48. Cartland, We Danced All Night, pp. 185–186. Lancaster, ed., Brian Howard, pp. 272–274
49. Jonathan Guinness with Catherine Guinness, The House of Mitford (London, 2004 edn), p. 318.
50. Guinness with Guinness, The House of Mitford, p. 318.
51. E. T. Williams and C. S. Nicholls, eds, Dictionary of National Biography 1961–1970 (Oxford, 1981), p. 499, entry for Clarence C. Hatry. Daily Sketch, 27 and 28 September 1929. Balfour, Society Racket, p. 69.
52. Daily Sketch, 27 September 1929.
53. Mary Soames, Clementine Churchill (London, 1979), p. 216.
54. Beverley Nichols, All I Could Never Be. Some Recollections (London, 1949), p. 165.
55. Ernest King, The Green Baize Door (Bath, 1963), p. 51. Daphne Fielding, Emerald and Nancy. Lady Cunard and Her Daughter (London, 1968), pp. 112 and 114–115.
56. See will of Lady Cunard at the Probate Office, London.
57. King, The Green Baize Door, p. 51.
58. Lovell, The Mitford Girls, p. 113.
59. Janet Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten. A Life of Her Own (London, 1992 edn), pp. 222–223 and 250–251.
60. Quoted in Cartland, We Danced All Night, p. 289.
61. The Bystander, 15 June 1932.
62. Taylor, Bright Young People, pp. 252–253. Morgan, Edwina Mountbatten, p. 221. Alec Waugh, A Year to Remember. A Reminiscence of 1931 (London, 1975), p. 151.
63. Taylor, Bright Young People, p. 253.
64. The Bystander, 17 July 1929.
65. The People, 10 July 1932.
66. Balfour, Society Racket, pp. 60 and 65–66. Balfour himself was short of cash in the early 1930s and according to Alec Waugh spent the winter of 1931 at an inexpensive hotel in Devon, where he could continue to write and was visited by his friends. He could not afford to live in London at that time. Waugh, A Year to Remember, p. 157.
67. Quoted in Taylor, Bright Young People, p. 252.
